


everything inside

by hardkourparcore



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, a little banter included!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:28:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27125879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hardkourparcore/pseuds/hardkourparcore
Summary: After six years of dating long-distance, Claude and Dimitri are meeting in person for the first time.  There's excitement in seeing one's boyfriend for the first time, but there's also nerves involved.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 7
Kudos: 90





	everything inside

**Author's Note:**

  * For [requiemofkings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/requiemofkings/gifts), [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> this is a commission piece for [gliocel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghiocel/) for their friend, [requiemofkings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/requiemofkings/)! 
> 
> just let it be said that if you enjoy this thank you! i've never written this ship before and it's not really one i'm interested in, so please don't subscribe/follow [my twitter](https://twitter.com/hardkourparcore) if you're looking for it <3

[ all boarded. eta 4:28pm your time. see you then. 💛 ]

Claude sent the text at the last possible opportunity. As soon as the little read receipt confirmed the message was sent and received, the whole plane was given an announcement to put away electronic devices and set all cellular phones to airplane mode.

In some way, it was easier. He could already accurately predict what Dimitri’s message might be. Six years of a long distance relationship would give him enough knowledge to do so. Claude could have expected a heart back, alongside a confirmation that Dimitri would be waiting at the airport, and probably some superfluous information referring to the amount of time it would take him to get there.

The plane rumbled to life and left the runway at what would be 11:40am Dimitri’s time. It was 3:40pm Claude’s time. He was weirdly anxious about this trip. Though he was no stranger to the ordeal of traveling alone or sitting on a plane for great stretches of time, the knotting in his stomach was half butterflies and half nerves making him ponder the contradictory nature of being both so excited and scared to meet his boyfriend for the first time. It was much easier to imagine whimsically where the missing time would hide away to as the plane crossed over so many time zones. A one hour flight that stretched so Claude would experience it as over four…

He preferred to think of all the inane conspiracy theories he could conjure of why time zones were actually bullshit, and of a mythical society where they went without such a stupid concept, than try and sort out any of his feelings.

He liked Dimitri. He wanted to see him. Wasn’t that all he needed?

It was a curious contradiction of long distance relationships, Claude decided on the plane. From the moment they’d decided to call each other “boyfriend” (which was only after they’d already spent some amount of time as online friends), Dimitri and Claude had discussed the desire to meet in person. It had never panned out, for six years. At first this was because of money reasons -- they both had better things to spend it towards, and agreed it was more important to make sure neither was late on rent, or their schooling was all paid for rather than spend it all on a single week they could spend together. Somehow, it had continued routinely for six years.

They wanted to meet, but there were more important things.

Logic dictated that Claude should be excited and ready to burst with enthusiasm that would make the hours-long flight unbearably longer. Yet in practice, he felt anxious. There was a curtain between him and his boyfriend that was about to be pulled back. There were aspects to people that could only be experienced face-to-face.

If he thought too hard about it, he’d make a list of potential worries that could make or break their relationship immediately:

What if Dimitri smelt bad? The question made him try to conjure any and all times Dimitri might have mentioned needing to take a shower, or if he ever mentioned the sort of shampoo he used.

What if Dimitri had some sort of physical tick that Claude found really annoying? He was hard-pressed to come up with what that might actually take the form of, but it seemed a valid enough concern because his mind kept bringing it up.

What if (and this was the worst one) somehow seeing each other face to face made all the romantic feelings, all the butterflies in his stomach, pack up and leave with little more than a single glance?

Even if that seemed logically unlikely or difficult to believe to any extent, it was still a question that Claude’s brain liked to put forth, just so he could roll it around in his head and feel a little sick to his stomach.

So his phone went away. He didn’t buy any on-flight wi-fi to attempt another way at communicating. He didn’t want any single interference to try and validate his anxious feelings. He wanted to lean back a little in his seat, close his eyes, and take a nap.

If he slept, he didn’t have to think about all this. If he slept, he wouldn’t feel as nearly as jet-lagged as when he finally landed. (It would be awkward if he needed a nap in the middle of Dimitri trying to take him out to dinner, for example.) If he slept, he couldn’t feel guilty for literally deciding to ignore his boyfriend.

He couldn’t sleep though. He got the disappointing restless sleep where he wasn’t entirely convinced he’d slept at all, but his body felt rested and he felt wide awake. He hadn’t slept through anything either. He remembered the announcement warning the passengers of heavy turbulence, and the later warning that they would be landing and could everyone please re-buckle their seatbelts until the plane was fully stopped.

So there he was, suddenly thousands of miles away from where he started. He didn’t have an escape plan. If things went poorly, he was stuck on this side of the planet until his flight back home next week.

That was another thing. He’d be leaving in a week. If things were poor, he’d suffer through a whole week in a city he didn’t know, and if things were wonderful, they’d come to an end in just a week before he needed to bear another flight back to normalcy.

As it were.

He thought there was something poignant about that. There was some answer to a question the universe asked there, if he could sort it out and put it into normal speech. He tried a few times as he rolled his carry-on bag down the aisle of the plane. It shuddered on the tunnel connecting the plane to the airport. If he focused on trying to give the universe some answer, he could better ignore the tension in his hand around his luggage or the pounding of his heart, both of which he could assume had no choice but to think about the anxiety brewing in his stomach.

He got into the airport and followed the signs for baggage claim. He only had one other bag, but he still had to get it, and he and Dimitri had planned ahead of time to meet there. He stopped for a second to check his phone. Dimitri had texted back.

[ Thank You, Claude! I can’t wait to see U then! Will leave at 3:40. It takes 30 minutes to get to airport from my house. Pls text when landed xoxo 🦁💙 ]

Claude’s face heated in embarrassment. How could he ignore that? For four hours? It was adorable, and sweet, and everything Dimitri was wrapped into one little text… He immediately stopped in the middle of the hallway to reply, pretending as though he’d never ignored it at all.

[ landed. omw to baggage. hope you brought dinner, i’m starving. ]

Once it sent, he continued to the baggage claim. His pocket vibrated just as he saw Dimitri, who was staring down at his phone. He didn’t bother checking it -- Claude was hungry, but he was also in a perpetual state of half-joking, and he knew Dimitri would just apologize for not bringing any food.

Shit, was he going to feel genuinely bad about it?

He took a step towards the blond. That hesitation from the plane ride was back in full force, halting his steps and giving him pause. His heart fluttered in his chest, and any butterflies in his stomach were waging an entire civil war. Dimitri looked up, and Claude had no time to plan an escape.

A slow smile spread across Dimitri’s face, warm enough to immediately melt Claude’s heart and maybe even his kneecaps. Even if he wasn’t confident in his ability to walk anymore, Claude stepped forward, to see Dimitri had made a sign.

He produced a whole poster board from being tucked under his arm on which he’d lovingly rendered in the most glittery way possible: Khalid. Rather, Dimitri had tried to write Claude’s name in its original Arabic form but it was immediately evident he’d looked up the alphabet without learning how it worked, and so it was written more like K H A L I D.

Still, the effort was evident, and Claude was touched, and this was not bringing back the function in his knees.

Dimitri didn’t move, nor did Claude, and the ridiculousness of the whole thing forced out a short, clipped laugh from the latter.

“Good to see you,” he said. He meant it, but at the same time he really only said it because he wasn’t sure what else he should say.

“Ah, yes. You as well,” Dimitri replied. If there was any silver lining to be completely awkward in front of the person you were in love with, Claude thought, it was definitely that he seemed to be just as awkward, if not more.

And then a thought struck him. What if, because he felt so awkward, it meant he actually wasn’t as in love with Dimitri as much as he thought he was when he’d booked the ticket? What if the nerves telling him reassuringly  _ you can leave at any time, Khalid _ , were actually indicative of what he actually wanted to do?

He stepped forward, surprised at the sturdiness he felt in his legs. Then he took another step, and another, until he was just in front of Dimitri. He discarded his carry-on and hugged the other, completely indifferent to the card paper trapped between their bodies.

Dimitri laughed a little and the sound was directly beside Claude’s ear.

He knew ahead of time that Dimitri was taller than him, but he didn’t realize Dimitri was so much  _ bigger _ than him, either. And he himself wasn’t small to begin with!

He pulled away first. Dimitri lingered, but didn’t seem upset by the motion, merely smiling serenely down at him.

Claude forced one back, and for a moment they were just… smiling at each other. Perhaps in a movie it would have been cute. Scene fades, credits roll. Here, he felt like they held it for too long. Dimitri might have been feeling just as awkward and strange as Claude was, and if that were the case, perhaps it was better to call the whole thing off?

“Your bags,” Dimitri said suddenly. “We should… er, get them.”

“Right,” Claude replied.

They both carried out the same thought: removing themselves from the other and moving over to the slow-moving conveyor belt carrying all the luggage from Claude’s flight.

It took an inordinately long amount of time for Claude’s bag to tumble out and slowly ride the belt towards them. He suspected, distantly, that it was their awkward interaction, and their long, strange hug that had allowed the bag to make an entire trip around the carousel, completely unseen, and that this was its second trip around. Regardless, it was retrieved, and Dimitri helpfully guided Claude out the airport and to his car.

Should they have been holding hands? No, they couldn’t have. Claude had two bags to carry, and were he to loose the grip on his carry-on, the thing might tumble off his shoulder and get in the way. Better they keep their hands to themselves -- that was just logical.

Dimitri’s car was ancient by car standards. As Claude got inside, he could smell the many years it had been on the road, stacked up on top of each other. It was old enough to be unlikely that Dimitri was its first owner, and that gave it the sort of intrigue that Claude especially found interesting. Claude’s luggage went in the back seat, and he rode shotgun. As Dimitri started up the car (which had a worryingly long shudder between the ignition and actually powering on), gentle soft rock began humming from the radio through speakers that clearly needed to be replaced.

There was a stretch of silence between the two, only gentle acoustic guitars to fill the air, as Dimitri pulled out of the parking lot and got on the highway. Just after it was long enough to become uncomfortable, Dimitri broke the silence.

“You… didn’t see the text I sent, did you?”

“Ah, nope! I saw you just as you sent it, and then promptly forgot about it.”

Claude watched Dimitri drive. He didn’t take his eyes off the road for a moment, but he was carrying a slight smile. “It’s no trouble,” he replied, “I was only asking if you’d like to get an early dinner.”

Claude leaned back in his own seat. Dimitri’s smile wasn’t exactly contagious, but he found himself grinning all the same. “Psshh, you don’t have to  _ ask _ me. I’m always down for early dinner. And early lunch, but not early breakfast.”

Dimitri just smiled. The silence was right behind the two, waiting in the backseat to join them again.

“Would late breakfast and early lunch just be a brunch, then?” Claude asked, completely for the purposes of keeping it away.

“Yes, I think it would,” Dimitri replied. “And would you agree that an early dinner would just make you hungry before bedtime? You might eat two dinners.”

“There is  _ nothing _ wrong with two dinners in the slightest,” Claude argued. “In fact, Second Dinner is a great motivator to my homework and schooling endeavors.”

Dimitri chuckled again. It was a gentle sound, much softer and sweeter than Claude had ever heard it through a headset or speaker. It was a warm sound, one that he could almost feel in his chest, even sitting in the front passenger seat as he was.

“Do you mind if I pick the place?” Dimitri asked. It caught Claude off guard, but he answered with a smile.

“Not at all. How can I pick any place if I’ve never been here before, after all.”

Dimitri nodded, though he wasn’t looking at Claude and could thereby not know if Claude saw it. The silence crept up back into the front seat and sat in their laps for the remainder of the drive, but Claude didn’t mind it this time.

They drove for a good twenty minutes until Dimitri pulled off on an exit. The sign that had warned Claude ahead of time of the food they might find there only marketed fast food chains. There was a sliver of doubt, suggesting the outrageous outcome of Dimitri taking him to a crappy burger joint for their first real, actual date, but at that moment Claude wouldn’t even care. His stomach was nearly painfully empty, and he was not one to let his hunger get this far usually.

But Dimitri took the car past all the fast food restaurants without a single glance to the side, and down another road. The congestion of trees on either side contradicted the amount of traffic it saw. Such a display was only a reminder of how far Claude was from home.

“Can I mess with the radio?” he asked, because he wanted something to do.

“Of course.”

He did. It brought him nothing more than a different genre of music to ignore.

“Almost there,” Dimitri said as he turned the car down another road. Like magic, the many trees gave way to strip malls and larger chain restaurants, many of which were sit-down places. Curious, Claude glanced over to his boyfriend to see which building he would choose.

(Should he have been judging the decision? He was hungry enough not to care, but was there a hidden meaning in the place Dimitri chose? If he took Claude to a two-bit restaurant, for example, did that mean he didn’t like him as much as he had been led to believe?)

“I hope you like it.” Dimitri pulled Claude away from his thoughts again with five simple words.

“Hey, I’m not that picky,” he replied, shrugging, even though Dimitri couldn’t see it.

That was similar to how they’d always operated. They’ve come six years with not being able to see the way Dimitri clutched the steering wheel gently, but confidently, or the way Claude tried so hard to cross his legs in the front seat despite the lack of space for the movement. Shouldn’t they want to see these things?

Claude’s thoughts this time came to a halt as the car was stopped. Dimitri had already parked in a parking spot, flush against a strip mall boasting various shops. Directly in front of them was Edmund Family Restaurant. Dimitri was out of the car before Claude finished reading the words, and was rounding it to Claude’s door.

He smiled knowingly, unhooked his seatbelt, and allowed Dimitri to open the car door for him. It was a little unnecessary, but it was very, very sweet.

“Thank you, sir,” Claude said, half-joking. He offered Dimitri a silly little bow. Pink spread across the blond’s face, and he cleared his throat.

And they stood, beside the car, for a moment. Claude stared at his boyfriend. It had been six years since they’d started dating, and even more since they met under silly pseudonyms. They had video calls often, so it wasn’t the shock of seeing what Dimitri really looked like for the first time, but it was the overwhelming feeling that he was here, beside him, and alive.

Dimitri turned, hesitantly, and Claude reached out for his hand. He halted at the contact, and turned back with a questioning gaze.

Claude’s words caught in his throat, so he just did his best to make his smile look easy. He laced their fingers together and gave Dimitri’s hand a little squeeze. He didn’t understand how such a small, simple gesture, could make his heart pound so violently in his chest.

People without long distance relationships must take such small, little gestures of intimacy for granted. Claude decided he wouldn’t. Ever.

“Well?” he asked Dimitri, who still hadn’t moved. “Take me there.”

Dimitri turned red, but he smiled, and led Claude into the restaurant.

The inside was an odd mix of bland and messy. The carpeting seemed cheap, the chairs were upholstered in outdated leather. Each table was coated in a layer of plastic, and within the plastic was advertisements for all manner of other local businesses. Claude was excited to examine them closer when they had a chance to sit down.

He waited by the door, but Dimitri tugged him further in.

“We seat ourselves,” he explained, bashful, for some reason.

Claude just beamed. He loved places like this. Dimitri picked a small table off to the side with two chairs. It seemed to have just as many advertisements as the others, so Claude was satisfied. He immediately looked at them.

There was some barber shop with a pun in the name, a phone number to enroll your son in a mini baseball league (ages 3-8), a consignment shop with strange hours, and to Claude’s delight -- a fortune teller and/or homeopathic medicine “commission-based” shop.

“Claude?” Dimitri said. Claude looked up. The waitress, a shy-looking thing with neatly tied blue hair, had a pencil poised above a small notebook, clearly waiting for something.

“Drinks, right,” Claude said. “Do you have lemonade?”

They had lemonade. Claude hoped it was something homemade, and bounced his knee excitedly in anticipation. The waitress had dropped off menus, which Dimitri was ignoring. Claude opened his.

“So you come here often?” Claude asked, twisting it to intentionally sound like a bad pick up line.

“Oh, no,” Dimitri replied, his tone implying how far off his thoughts had been just a moment prior. “Well, yes, but not as often as I’d like…”

Claude hummed. It did little to keep the conversation going, but he was at least making an effort on deciding what he’d like to order. He found it rather quickly -- there was a house special chicken pot pie with  _ cornbread  _ as a side, and the example photo was so badly lit and ugly Claude couldn’t keep his curiosity at bay.

Even then, he kept his eyes on the menu. It was easier, in the silence, to look at whatever homestyle meals the small restaurant had to offer, than to find somewhere on the wall to look, or aimlessly flit his gaze around the dining room. He much preferred having something to say, no matter how vapid or stupid, than sitting silently. This way, he could pretend the silence had a purpose.

After a moment, though, Dimitri spoke up. “Er, Claude?”

“Mmhm?” He looked up, like Dimitri was actually distracting him from determining what he’d like to eat.

“Are you… Does this feel as dreamlike to you as it does to me?”

Claude could have said yes emphatically and immediately. Instead, he opted for, “What do you mean?”

Dimitri paused in the thoughtful way he tried when he wanted to find the right words to express himself genuinely. “I was so excited at the thought of you visiting, but now that you’re here… I find myself at a loss for how to… approach this.”

Even though Dimitri’s brow was furrowed slightly, and his hands were folded properly, Claude had a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah,” he breathed. “Six years didn’t really prepare us for actually being in the same room together.”

He didn’t want to admit that he was afraid that meeting Dimitri in real life would cause some illusionary Dimitri to shatter, and he’d lose the man he’d fallen in love with. He didn’t want to admit that he had no idea what Dimitri’s boundaries were, and he felt like he  _ should _ have after six years, so it felt too late or too embarrassing to ask now. It was easy to be awkward, and put on his confident facade and pretend like he wasn’t still worried about these things, even in the face of them with Dimitri less than three feet away.

“You’re right,” Dimitri said. “There are things we should talk about that we might have discussed when we first started dating, had it been in-person from the start…”

There was a tightness in Claude’s chest. No matter how Dimitri meant that to sound, it came out like the prelude to a break up, but to mention it would probably just upset and fluster him. He just let him continue.

“You don’t mind holding hands at all, yes?” Dimitri asked the question with such a sweet, bashful smile, that Claude almost didn’t realize he was seeking an answer.

“I don’t mind holding hands at all,” Claude replied. His own smile turned easier. Leave it to Dimitri to be able to tackle this friction between them in such a wholesome and emphatic way.

“Are you against sharing a bed? I have an air mattress if you’d prefer to sleep on that. I’d rather you be comfortable.”

“We just met and you’re already asking to sleep together?” Claude teased.

He should have seen this coming, really. It was always Dimitri’s honesty that unfurled whatever burden Claude masked with his usual levity. In a sense, it unbound his heart and allowed it to soar… straight into his throat, with the wings tickling his stomach.

“Well, not so much like that!” Dimitri said, flustered. “That’s another conversation we can have later, if we decide to.

“I just would rather determine these things so I don’t accidentally make you uncomfortable…”

“I know.” Claude’s voice was softer now, lacking the humorous edge he usually kept. “And I appreciate it. I’ll tell you if you tell me back, okay?”

Dimitri let out a brief laugh. He was pink, but his smile soft and no longer awkward. “Yes, that sounds good.”

“So, if we’re gonna be romantic about this, can we do an extremely gay kiss over this small table?”

Dimitri made that sound again, causing Claude’s smile to grow wider. He glanced around, seeing if any one else was in the restaurant, or perhaps wondering if he cared if they saw. But he leaned forward, slightly, allowing Claude to do as he pleased.

And Claude saw fit to leave his chair to close the distance between them, leaning over the table. He took Dimitri’s face in his hands, and slowly sealed the gap between their lips.

Maybe it was too long, but Dimitri didn’t push him away. He parted them again, and beamed at his blushing boyfriend, watching a sweet little smile return slowly on his face.

Claude knew then, as he returned to his seat, that this visit would be better than he’d expected.


End file.
